Darlene was subsequently arrested and after a year of legal haggling, the state’s attorney agreed to a modest plea bargain. To save the boy from testifying, prosecutors allowed Darlene to plead guilty to sexual assault of a minor and accept the following penalty: registration as a sex offender, surrender of her teaching certificate for life, the inability to live within 1,000 feet of a church, school, or playground, and three years of house arrest, which required her to wear an ankle monitor and to be inside her home by ten o’clock each evening.
Harry thought about the woman as he stared out into the pond at the side of the hiking trail. He had just completed a cell phone call to his captain, Pete Rourke, and had been told not to proceed with his investigation until he got further instructions. That meant Rourke was calling the chief of detectives, which meant that the crime scene would soon be overrun with brass. Harry wasn’t sure which he liked less, fighting off the media or fighting off the brass. He’d probably end up with both. The chance of the story leaking from a commander’s office was even greater than it leaking from the field.
“What are you thinking about?” Vicky asked.
“That nine-foot gator,” Harry said. “I finally spotted it.”
“Where is it?”
Harry elevated his chin toward the other side of the pond. “It’s in that patch of duckweed just opposite us.”
Vicky stared at the duckweed, a floating emerald-green plant so tightly formed that it makes the water it covers look like solid ground. Tourists have been known to step on it unawares and come up sputtering for air and covered in a green film. In the center of the weed bank she could just make out the gator. “He is a big boy,” she said. “I’m surprised he didn’t sniff out our corpse.”
“He would have by tonight,” Harry said. “And if he didn’t the vultures would have for sure.”
Vicky inclined her head toward the gator. “What do we do if he decides to come across the pond?”
“We shoot him.” Harry took in the slightly shocked look on her face and smiled. “Back when I was on patrol, I was sent out to back up a deputy who was trying to keep a four-footer from crossing a highway. Ten minutes later we were calling for backup again. There were five of us before it was all over, four deputies and an animal control officer. This little four-footer chewed up the pants leg of one deputy and beat the hell out of the rest of us with its tail. The animal officer finally got a capture wire around its jaws, but it still took all of us twenty minutes to wrestle it back into the retention pond it had crawled out of. And that pond was only fifty feet away.”
Vicky nodded her head. “I knew they were nasty, but alligator wrestling… I missed that little thrill during my time on the street.” She gave him an impish smile. “But you just got my vote, Harry Doyle. That nine-footer comes over here, we shoot it.”
The brass arrived twenty minutes later. Pete Rourke led them in, keeping everybody to the side of the trail. You’d think they’d know that without being carefully directed, Harry thought. But he knew this wasn’t the case. He had endured enough compromised crime scenes at the hands, and feet, of senior commanders to know better. Above squad commander, which was Rourke’s level, promotions were based purely on politics-who had most ingratiated himself in Florida’s political quagmire. And the sheriff’s department offered some of the biggest political plums to be had. At the county level the department commanded more jobs, more authority, and a bigger share of the budget than any other. That made the elected office of sheriff one of power personified. And promotions to the upper levels of his department were reserved for those who had served the sheriff politically and could be considered trusted allies. It was mostly a question of earned patronage rather than competence, although occasionally you found someone who was a clever politician and who also knew the job. But it was rare. In Harry’s view, the three men who Rourke now led into the crime scene did not fall into that rarified category.
Marching along directly behind Rourke was Kyle Rothman, the chief of department, a man who had jumped to that post from a lieutenancy in patrol after working tirelessly for the election of Dave Oberoff, the incumbent sheriff. Oberoff, himself, had never seen the inside of a patrol car. Prior to taking control of the county’s police force, he had headed one of the state’s largest real estate firms-a multimillion-dollar company that was now operated by his wife. Rothman supposedly ran the department for him. In reality, Rothman, a tall, slender, hatchet-faced fifty-year-old with fast receding black hair, contented himself with issuing the sheriff’s directives and planning press conferences that would make his boss seem like an “in charge” police executive, while assuming that the real cops under him would keep the department functioning. And that’s what Harry assumed he was doing here now-evaluating the crime scene for press potential-that and amusing himself by playing detective, a rank he had never achieved.
Following directly behind the chief was his right-hand man, Rudy Morse, whose main job was to drive the chief’s car and open his doors. Morse was in his late thirties, a weightlifter gone to seed, with a square head shaved in a high and tight military cut, who despite a questionable I.Q. had been hired into the newly created post of assistant to the chief. He did have one essential qualification: he was the sheriff’s nephew.
Last in line was Jim Mabrey, a fifty-five-year-old former assistant editor for the Tampa Tribune, and now the department’s public information officer. Mabrey would probably have been competent at his job if he was allowed to do it unimpeded. But that was never the case where the press was concerned. Especially in a politically charged situation, where one ranking officer or another always thought they knew how to best handle the media. Mabrey was tall and paunchy, with thick salt-and-pepper hair, a large nose, and heavy bags under his eyes, all of which made him look a bit like a bassett hound. He considered his job part of his retirement, and looked at it with a world-weary eye. If the higher-ups didn’t want him to do the job the right way, he would do it the way they wanted and smile all the way to the bank.
“Okay,” Rourke began, as the quartet came to a halt in front of Harry and Vicky, “you’re in charge of the crime scene, Harry. Tell us where we can and can’t go.”
Harry gave Rourke a look that asked if he really wanted an honest reply. Rourke gave him a stern look of warning in return.
“I really don’t want anyone to go any further than this,” Harry began. “The more people allowed in, the greater the chance of compromising the scene.” He inclined his head toward Vicky. “My partner and I can fill you gentlemen in and show you the Polaroids we took of the body.”
Rourke let out a heavy sigh, knowing what was coming.
Rothman glared at Harry, bristling at the rebuke. “I’m going in and you’re taking me,” he snapped.
“You’re the chief,” Harry said.
“That’s right, I am,” Rothman replied.
“Then why don’t you follow me and step exactly where I step,” Harry said as he turned and started back into the swamp.
That’s my partner, Vicky thought, as she fought back a smile. Mr. Personality.
Rothman uttered a string of expletives. Harry assumed that one of the chief’s highly polished, dress cordovans had slipped into a soft spot in the swamp’s surface. His back was to the chief, so it was safe to smile without risking the man’s ire, but Harry knew he would have done it even if they were face-to-face. He decided to find another soft spot on the way out, one that would take the chief down to his ankle.